We spent three nights in Annecy, both due to my health and a predicted storm Thursday/Friday. Thursday it rained all day, I went to a doctor and got lots of meds and spent the rest of the day in our hotel, much of it sleeping. The storm only lasted one day, so we did some sightseeing in Annecy as we still weren’t quite up to skiing. Liz escaped the worst of my illness, but Friday was the day she was a bit off and thus not tempted to go skiing on her own.
On our last day in Europe Saturday we drove about 45 minutes to La Clusaz, which has been on my radar since James’ trip several years ago.
We drove through town and parked at Le Fernuy, which offers faster access to the best skiing at Col de Balme. That is La Clusaz’ high point at about 8,100 feet. Saturday’s weather was not as nice as Friday’s as it was overcast most of the day. However the clouds were usually above the ski area and there were a few sunny breaks. During a break around 11:30 we got the views off the back of Col de Balme.
Mont Blanc:
Heading down from Col de Balme:
The skiing up here and on the next bowl over Torchere is wide and expansive with rolling fall lines. The powder had been hit fairly hard by the locals on Friday though and it was not smooth skiing off piste. Another factor is that the last storm before Thursday had been the strong but wet one two weekends so the subsurface was somewhat irregular. The bottom line was that the snow was in that awkward “chowder” stage between Friday’s powder and the packed skiing like we had at Grands Montets Tuesday.
Lower down the valley floor around 4,000 feet comes into hazy view.
The good news is that Thursday’s snow had a low rain/snow line and thus resurfaced the lower half of the mountain that had the rain two weeks ago. The ridge between Col de Balme and Torchere is impressive too.
From the Torchere poma we skied 3,500+ vertical back to Le Fernuy. We were off piste for much of the upper third of that.
Note the poles marking the black Vraille trail. This was left ungroomed, more like a yellow “skiroute” in Austria or Switzerland. At most places in the Alps pistes marked blue, red or black are always groomed.
Temperatures maxed at 19F, and even though there was no wind the overcast and perhaps our less than 100% health called for a quick thaw break around 1PM. We rode the Fernuy gondola and the Aiguille chair the top of La Clusaz’ central terrain pod at 7,700 feet. This was then only sector which had some cloud/fog at piste level, and also to little surprise the highest skier density.
To ski into town you divert skier’s right a bit farther down. The easiest slopes are down below and you can cross the road in town and ski a circuit of smaller terrain pods to Belvedere.
But we had relatively little time and thus skied fall line to the short Transval tram, which crosses the road above town to Belvedere directly. Belvedere rises to 6,500 feet and I took my first run there between the trees and the piste above here.
Our second run was the black Tetras, which was ungroomed soft moguls on its upper half. At the bottom of Tetras we got a good view of the Transval tram crossing the road and the town of La Clusaz farther down.
We ascended two Jument lifts and skied a long red piste down to Le Fernuy. View of some of the upper section of Le Fernuy:
There is plenty of scope to wander off piste in this sector too, but it was 3:30 and we were getting cold again. We skied 19,900 vertical from 10:45 – 3:45.
We got a good survey of La Clusaz overall and appreciate the advice from James as well as Fraser of weathertoski.co.uk. La Clusaz is another area like Grands Montets where you can get in a lot of off piste skiing without a guide. It is high proportion north facing with abundant snowfall per Fraser but its altitude range is about 2,000 feet lower than at Grands Montets.
On our last day in Europe Saturday we drove about 45 minutes to La Clusaz, which has been on my radar since James’ trip several years ago.
We drove through town and parked at Le Fernuy, which offers faster access to the best skiing at Col de Balme. That is La Clusaz’ high point at about 8,100 feet. Saturday’s weather was not as nice as Friday’s as it was overcast most of the day. However the clouds were usually above the ski area and there were a few sunny breaks. During a break around 11:30 we got the views off the back of Col de Balme.
Mont Blanc:
Heading down from Col de Balme:
The skiing up here and on the next bowl over Torchere is wide and expansive with rolling fall lines. The powder had been hit fairly hard by the locals on Friday though and it was not smooth skiing off piste. Another factor is that the last storm before Thursday had been the strong but wet one two weekends so the subsurface was somewhat irregular. The bottom line was that the snow was in that awkward “chowder” stage between Friday’s powder and the packed skiing like we had at Grands Montets Tuesday.
Lower down the valley floor around 4,000 feet comes into hazy view.
The good news is that Thursday’s snow had a low rain/snow line and thus resurfaced the lower half of the mountain that had the rain two weeks ago. The ridge between Col de Balme and Torchere is impressive too.
From the Torchere poma we skied 3,500+ vertical back to Le Fernuy. We were off piste for much of the upper third of that.
Note the poles marking the black Vraille trail. This was left ungroomed, more like a yellow “skiroute” in Austria or Switzerland. At most places in the Alps pistes marked blue, red or black are always groomed.
Temperatures maxed at 19F, and even though there was no wind the overcast and perhaps our less than 100% health called for a quick thaw break around 1PM. We rode the Fernuy gondola and the Aiguille chair the top of La Clusaz’ central terrain pod at 7,700 feet. This was then only sector which had some cloud/fog at piste level, and also to little surprise the highest skier density.
To ski into town you divert skier’s right a bit farther down. The easiest slopes are down below and you can cross the road in town and ski a circuit of smaller terrain pods to Belvedere.
But we had relatively little time and thus skied fall line to the short Transval tram, which crosses the road above town to Belvedere directly. Belvedere rises to 6,500 feet and I took my first run there between the trees and the piste above here.
Our second run was the black Tetras, which was ungroomed soft moguls on its upper half. At the bottom of Tetras we got a good view of the Transval tram crossing the road and the town of La Clusaz farther down.
We ascended two Jument lifts and skied a long red piste down to Le Fernuy. View of some of the upper section of Le Fernuy:
There is plenty of scope to wander off piste in this sector too, but it was 3:30 and we were getting cold again. We skied 19,900 vertical from 10:45 – 3:45.
We got a good survey of La Clusaz overall and appreciate the advice from James as well as Fraser of weathertoski.co.uk. La Clusaz is another area like Grands Montets where you can get in a lot of off piste skiing without a guide. It is high proportion north facing with abundant snowfall per Fraser but its altitude range is about 2,000 feet lower than at Grands Montets.
